Shawn Blanc

And now, guess I’d better go buy a Ferrari.

Here’s a Javascript imitation of Threes that you can play in your desktop browser. I played a few games and tracked the dealing, and so far as I can, this browser clone follows the same card-dealing stack logic as the official Threes iOS game does. However, it’s still just an imitation and not a duplication, as it doesn’t allow for the slow slide to preview your potential next move, nor does it have the charming animated monsters and all the other little details that make the iOS game so great.

Today, on episode 7 of The Weekly Briefly, I continue a topic from a Shawn Today episode last week regarding “writing the Internet you want to read”.

Brought to you by:

• The AXX 200: A Bluetooth speaker + Sound Blaster audio processor. On sale for a limited time.

• The awesome members of shawnblanc.net: thanks to their support which makes the work that I do a sustainable possibility.

Daniel Engber, writing for The New York Times (via The Tech Block):

“People wait for all sorts of things every day, sometimes more happily than others,” wrote the interface designer Bob Stahl in a 1986 article for Computerworld. “The problem is how the user feels about waiting.” At the time, machines were often slow and unreliable, and users didn’t always know when their programs crashed. A “progress bar” might mitigate frustration, Stahl suggested, by signaling that bits were flipping with a purpose somewhere deep inside the C.P.U.

It’s true. Even now, when computers are a bazillion times faster than they were 30 years ago, it’s calming to have a cue that the computer is working, the website is loading, or the iMessage is sending.

And, so long as we’re talking about progress bars, see also this classic xkcd comic.

Two things. For one, I love reviews like this one which are done after owning a product for quite a while. In this case, Thomas has been using the 2Unfold a year. I bought a Hard Graft Flat Pack almost two years ago and it is so nice and still in excellent condition.

And secondly, Thomas’s site is powered by the Ghost blogging platform. His is the first I’ve come across using it in the wild (though maybe I’m just not looking hard enough).

Speaking of the internet and Alan Adler, here is a Q&A interview he did on Slashdot just a couple months ago. (Via Marco, of course.)

Om Malilk and Keila Fong compare the usage numbers of WhatsApp to other social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, et al. And the numbers are staggering — talk about making the case for mobile.

I enjoyed this Forbes article by Parmy Olson sharing some of the behind-the-scenes storyline to the Facebook-WhatsApp acquisition. I do all my messaging on iMessage, SMS, and Twitter (and Whisper during nerd conferences), so when I first read about the $19 billion deal it was with just about zero knowledge of what WhatsApp was and how big it was. Olson’s article gives a lot of context to the service.

Robert McGinley Myers:

What makes the iPad stand out from other tablet computers, and what makes it so much more appealing, is that it was designed with intimacy in mind. And I think we’re just on the cusp of discovering how that intimacy affords different kinds of behaviors, different kinds of creativity and productivity.

This is an excellent article by Rob. And, tangentially, he articulates why it is I ended up picking the iPad mini rather than the iPad Air after my 3 months of side-by-side comparative usage. In short, though the larger screen on the Air was technically better for most things — writing, reading comics, watching videos, surfing the World Wide Web, etc. — the smaller form factor of the iPad mini made that device more appealing to me.

There’s just something a little bit mind blowing about a personal computer that can fit into a purse or the side pocket of your winter jacket.

Good news for fans of The Hit List (via DF):

We have been big fans of The Hit List, Potion’s flagship app, for a while now. We’ve looked around, and we’ve never found a better designed app to handle personal task management than The Hit List, perfectly balanced between power and ease-of-use. We use it every day. And we wanted to keep improving it, but also bring to it a bigger marketing force and level of support than Andy was able to, so that it can reach a bigger audience.

A few weeks ago on Twitter I mentioned The Hit List and was blown away by the number of responses from so many folks that either (a) still use THL, or (b) wish they were using it but had to move on to something different because of it’s slow development cycle.

I personally never got into The Hit List — I was a devout Things user back when THL was at its peak, and I later moved to OmniFocus — but I know a lot of people that were (and apparently still are).

In fact, the very first Sweet Mac Setup interview I ever did here was with Mark Jardine, and he was using The Hit List at the time:

I manage my life and projects with this app. Omnifocus was too much, Things was not enough. The Hit List is the perfect balance of power, simplicity, and beauty. It doesn’t have an iPhone companion yet, but it’s so good I don’t mind waiting for it.

I have been with Media Temple for years and have always been extremely happy with their service. I started with (mt) when I had to move this site to a Grid Server back in 2007 shortly after a link from Daring Fireball crashed shawnblanc.net for like two days.

A few years later, the traffic here outgrew the Grid Server’s monthly GPU allotment and so I moved to a DV Virtual Private server. I also set The Sweet Setup on its own VPS machine and have been very pleased with the performance of the new Managed (dv) servers I’m on. We did almost 200,000 pageviews in our first 24 hours and the site didn’t even blink.

And that’s why I pay for the DV servers — not because I want a dedicated server environment, but because I need servers with more horsepower than the (gs) can handle.

I have considered moving my sites to WP Engine, but I would need one of their custom Premium plans, which means pricing would have been over $250/month — more than double what I’m currently paying for my two dedicated virtual servers on Media Temple.

Last week I spoke with Rick over at Flywheel, and they don’t even cater to guys like me who have a few WP sites and just need good fast managed hosting.

Well, now there is this brand new WordPress Premium Hosting service from Media Temple. And it’s just 29 bucks a month. It’s for folks who want to run a WordPress site or three, and who don’t want to fuss with updates, caching, backups, maintenance, troubleshooting, etc. That pretty much describes me exactly.

I spoke with Media Temple’s customer support earlier today. The Managed WordPress hosting service uses SSD servers, offers unlimited traffic (most manage hosting serves charge by pageviews), and should be able to easily handle the modicum of traffic my sites are doing.

Federic Lardinois, writing for TechCrunch about the new service, says:

Dante Baker, Media Temple’s product manager for this project, tells me that the managed WordPress hosting will offer a one-click setup for developers and designers who don’t want to have to deal with setting up servers and dealing with performance and scaling issues. Just like similar services, it will offer automated updates and one-click backups.

I’ll probably move The Sweet Setup over to the new service and see how things do for a month or two. If I move all three of my sites — TSS, shawnblanc.net, and Tools & Toys — it would save me $85/month in hosting costs. Not to mention the peace of mind of having WordPress-specific managed hosting.

Fun and clever new project from Patrick Rhone and Bethany Gladhill:

Tweet Small Change is $140.00 micro-grants given to compelling arts projects that are pitched via tweets.

Tweet Small Change just launched today, and they are accepting submissions. You submit your grant request via Twitter. You can read more about it on Patrick’s site.

We believe there’s so much more that your portable wireless speaker should do for you. That’s why we made the AXX 200.

The AXX 200 is a Bluetooth wireless speaker + Sound Blaster audio processor. This means a portable wireless speaker with power for real-time audio enhancement.

Intelligence. That’s what the AXX 200 brings to the table.

• Make a call. Listen to music. AXX 200 intelligently adjusts the audio settings for you.
• The Sound Blaster Central App for your iOS or Android device places the control in your hands.
• Built-in quad array microphone — that’s FOUR microphones in a single wireless speaker for 360° of clear, unmatched audio pickup for voice calls and recording.
• A wireless speaker that automatically cancels out noise during voice calls. For real.

It’s for work, it’s for play.
It can be everything you need it to be.

The AXX 200 is now on sale for a limited time at Creative.com and Amazon.com.

* * *

My thanks to Creative Labs for sponsoring the site this week.